Yesterday the Washington Times ran an impassioned column by M. Zuhdi Jasser, chairman of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, calling for a counter-movement within Islam: Cancer in its midst. (Hat tip: Bubbaman.)

During the dark days of our Revolution, Thomas Paine wrote, “That these are the times, that try men’s souls.” As an American Muslim, I feel the sentiment of these words like a red-hot brand on my brain.

I have watched horrified as assassins have read out the words from my Holy Koran before slitting the throats of some poor innocent souls. To my non-comprehending eyes, I have seen mothers proudly support their sons’ accomplishment of blowing up innocent people as they eat or travel. It shatters some part of me, to see my faith as an instrument for butchery.

It makes me hope and pray for some counter-movement within my faith which will push back all this darkness. And I know that it must start with what is most basic — the common truth that binds all religions: “Do unto others, as you would have them do onto you.” The Golden Rule.

But that is not what I am seeing taught in a great deal of the Muslim world today, and, unfortunately, in America it’s just not much better.

Night after night, I see Muslim national organizations like the Council for American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, cry out over and over about anecdotal victimization while saying and doing absolutely nothing about the most vile hate-speak and actions toward Jews and Christians in the Muslim world. It is the most self-serving of outrage.

Today Ibrahim Hooper of radical Islamic front group CAIR launches the inevitable attack:

In his commentary (“Cancer in its midst”, Op-Ed, yesterday), M. Zuhdi Jasser states that he hopes and prays “for some counter-movement within my faith which will push back all this darkness” of terrorism, in apparent blissful ignorance of the fact that American Muslim groups have consistently and repeatedly condemned terrorism in all its forms.